Lovely, small scale Americana.

The fine American composer, Robert Ward, Pulitzer Prize winner for his opera The Crucible, studied at the Eastman School of Music, The Juilliard School, and the Berkshire Music Center. He has taught at Queens College, Columbia University, Juilliard and Duke University where he held the Mary Duke Biddle Chair in Music. He was the Director of the Third Street Music School Settlement, Assistant tot he President of Juilliard and Executive Vice-President and Managing Editor of Galaxy Music Corporation and Highgate Press before becoming president of the North Carolina School of the Arts in 1967. He retired from Duke University in 1988 and since that time has lectured widely in this country, Europe, the Far East and Latin America. He recently won the Gold Baton of the American Symphony Orchestra League and received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Review:

"This disc is interesting partly because it contains two works from the mid-50s coupled with two from the 90s. Ward never allowed musical fashion to affect him unduly: though his First violin Sonata boasts a 12-tone theme in its finale, it is treated in a tonal way. This and the Arioso & Tarantelle for cello and piano are from the 50s, pleasantly lyrical, with the open harmonies characteristic of American music since Copland showed us how. Ward has never left that style: the Second Violin Sonata, though lighter in texture and rhythmically freer than the first, is clearly by the same composer.This is a well-played disc of pleasant, unthreatening music by a major American composer." (American Record Guide)